Of all the battles Darryl Strawberry has waged in 38 years, none is bigger than what the star-crossed slugger faces today. Never has there been more at stake for Strawberry, who officially received the news that cancer has again invaded his body.

After undergoing tests Monday and Tuesday in a St. Petersburg hospital, Strawberry got the word yesterday that a cancerous tumor has been found in his stomach, near the area in which he underwent colon cancer surgery in 1998.

“He is facing a pretty tough road,” said Eric Grossman, Strawberry’s Manhattan-based lawyer told The Post. “It’s the fight of his life.”

While a chest X-ray done Monday didn’t reveal the cancer had spread to the chest cavity, yesterday’s news painted a serious picture for Strawberry, the father of five children, the youngest of whom, Jewel, who was born on Father’s Day.

As he did in October of 1998, Strawberry will undergo surgery to remove the tumor at New York’s Columbia Presbyterian Hospital. According to Grossman, Strawberry wasn’t sure when he will travel from his Tampa home. However, Grossman said Strawberry will arrive in New York “soon.”

“The team of doctors hasn’t seen him yet, so they will want to examine him and then operate on him,” Grossman said. “Then they will lay out a course of treatment for him.”

Yesterday’s news confirmed what a CAT-Scan taken indicated last week – that there was growth in the lymph nodes area of the stomach.

“He is acting like a 38-year-old man with a deadly disease growing inside of him,” Grossman said. “He is focused and he is positive.”

Since Strawberry was diagnosed with colon cancer in October of 1998, Strawberry’s life has been a living hell. Six months of chemotherapy left Strawberry depressed and when he was left behind in Tampa when the Yankees broke camp in April of 1999, Strawberry was busted for cocaine possession and soliciting sex from a female Tampa police officer posing as a prostitute on April 14.

Straw was suspended by Bud Selig for 120 days and returned a week early. This past Jan. 18, Strawberry failed a court-ordered drug test and on Feb. 28, Selig banned him from baseball for one year.

Last week’s Sports Illustrated ran a story that while he was at the Fort Lauderdale rehab center, he visited a swingers’ sex club called Trapeze II on several occasions. Strawberry insisted he was there once for five minutes and threatened the magazine with legal action. Last Friday he discussed the situation with his parole officer and passed a drug test. The owner of the club supported Strawberry’s story of being there only once.

Meanwhile in Minnesota, Marvin Goldklang, the owner of the St. Paul Saints, said Strawberry won’t be joining his team this summer to do community relations work,

“Darryl is dealing with a very serious medical condition,” Goldklang said. “At this point, we’re not even thinking about what he may or may not do for the Saints. Darryl might be in the hospital the rest of the summer.”